Carousel
by A Lonely God
Summary: Ellie and Joel stumble upon an iconic piece of American childhood.


Another piece of metal tubing fell from Ellie's hands and clattered against the ground noisily. She frowned at the tube and looked over her shoulder at Joel, busy reloading his weapon. She spoke as the top of her foot nudged the metal along the ground.

"Where the fuck is all this metal comin' from?"

Joel raised his head at her voice, throwing the shotgun over his shoulder and into its holster. He shrugged, even though Ellie couldn't see it.

"Beats me," He stared at the many different tubes as they walked by. Ellie was right – they'd be walking for a good thirty minutes, and they'd walked past nearly thirty different pieces of, well, crap, "Some old buildin' or somethin'?"

The young girl ahead of him raised an eyebrow and thrust her hands into the dirty pockets of her jeans, "From where? Not much around to fall over, huh?"

She was right. They were walking across an open field – something of a change. Usually, they followed the main highways and roads all the way to the next Zone, past the abandoned cars leaking the fumes of gasoline, and the sometimes decaying bodies littering the asphalt. Today, however, the highway had been blocked by too many cars to jump over. Ellie had remarked that expanse to their left was clear, and that was how they had ended up meandering through almost thigh high grass, and stepping over large chunks of metal piping.

Joel shrugged, "I dunno. Just keep walkin'. There's a ways to go until the next Zone, and I wanna be there before dark."

With the most subtle of nods, Ellie slowed her walk to the same pace as Joel's so that she was walking beside him, mostly because she didn't know where she was going, but also because she was looking for other pieces of metal.

They were quiet as they walked, not out of awkwardness or a lack of comfort, but rather because they were so comfortable in the silence. Ellie often spent the quiet time looking around her, getting a feel for the land, taking in the trees, the mountains – even the abandoned buildings in the distance. Joel…well, Joel spent a lot of his time thinking.

He was doing just that when Ellie swatted his arm less than gently, "Hey, what the hell're you—"

"Up ahead," Ellie pointed to a fixed spot some ways in the distance, "The hell is that?"

Joel squinted into the distance. As he aged, his eyes were definitely getting worse, but even from far away he could make out the muddled shapes in the distance. They were buildings, as far as he could tell, but buildings unlike any others he had seen in the city. He couldn't be sure of what they were – they were too far away.

"C'mon! Let's check 'em out!" Ellie said, green eyes wide. She took off at a jog towards the cluster of buildings.

Joel sighed, starting off after her at a much slower pace. She was a hundred feet ahead of him when her feet started hitting more asphalt. Ellie stopped for a minute, taking in her surroundings. She had no idea what the square patch of pavement was for. Was it some sort of parking lot that was over twenty years old? There were no cars…

One of the buildings caught her eyes. It was less of a building now that she was up close, and more of a piece of machinery. Ellie knew it from somewhere, from reading.

"What the hell did you find?" Joel's feet clapped the pavement behind her, and she heard his panting breaths.

"It's one of those things!" She pointed at the structure. It had a circular base and a cone shaped roof, and in the middle were painted, metal animals. They were attached to the centre of the contraption with rusted rods, "Jesus, what the fuck are they called?"

A half smile lit Joel's face, "Merry-go-round?"

"Yes!" Ellie stumbled up to it, running a hand over the rusted metal of one of the horses, "Think it'll break if I sit?"

The man shrugged, "Try it."

Ellie pulled herself up onto the horse and hugged it around the neck, grinning wildly. Joel slipped past the carousel, examining the other buildings around the lot. There were several other rides, in the same shape as the merry-go-round, but still standing. Beside a game stand, he could faintly make out what looked like the tattered remains of a small roller coaster track.

"What is all this stuff?"

Ellie's voice was distant, and Joel meandered back around from his exploring to see her sitting sideways on the chipped saddle of the horse. He shoved his hands into his pockets.

"It's, ah, it's a carnival, I think," He took another look around, "They had lots of these back in Texas."

"What were they for?" Ellie's bottom lip jut out in thought. She'd seen several pictures of amusement park rides, but the whole concept had slightly baffled her. Just a little, "I mean, I've got an idea, but."

A metal pole, what Joel assumed to be an old street lamp, was still standing across from the carousel. He crossed his arms and leaned up against it, "Well, it was mostly just for fun. Rides and stuff. Games."

"Sounds fun."

Joel pressed his lips together, "'T was. Sarah 'n I came here once, just before she turned twelve. She won a stuffed giraffe."

The last time he'd seen that giraffe was the night he'd tucked her into bed for the last time; the night the infection had met their neighbours and forced him and his daughter out of their home. The memory hit him like a train, but he simply cringed and shook it off.

Ellie was smiling when he looked back at her, "How?"

The wind rattled through the carousel, and Ellie jumped off of it. Joel took a second to admire the ruins of the carnival before he answered. They were rather beautiful, once you got past the fact that people had likely died there. There was something haunting about it, about the intact rides and the still standing game booths. It was like he could still hear children laughing and see them being dragged about by their parents.

"How what?"

"How'd she win a giraffe?" Ellie wandered away, keeping within hearing distance. Her feet scuffed against the cracked asphalt.

Joel shrugged, "Game booth. I think…ah, the milk bottles, I reckon."

"The hell is that?"

Ellie had her back to one of the game stands. It had several objects still standing up inside, including wooden cylinders stacked on top of one another. Joel gestured to it.

"Kinda like that, 'cept with bottles. You toss a ball at it and knock 'em over. If you do, you win."

The teenager spun to look at the booth behind her. She crossed her arms and frowned, "Easy."

Joel cracked a smile at her comment, "Not as easy as it seems. A lot of the time, they weighted the bottles. Keep you from winnin'."

"That's not fair," Ellie frowned, feeling very offended that adults could even think about jipping little kids out of winning stuffed giraffe, "You wanna bet I can knock all those over, first try?"

The young girl had palmed a rather large rock, and was now shifting it from right hand to left hand. Joel chuckled, the sound low in his throat. He held out his hands, palms up.

"Go for it."

Being careful to aim, Ellie brought up her hand and tossed the rock less than gently at the row of wooden blocks. The rock hit the pieces of wood, made them wobble, and then dropped to the ground in front of the table.

Ellie's jaw dropped open in anger, "What the fuck? Joel, what the fuck! You saw that, right? I hit it head on!"

"Let me try," Joel offered, grabbing his own rock, "Scoot." He nudged Ellie out of his line of sight, aimed, and tossed the rock. It hit in the same spot as Ellie's, with just a bit more force. Not all of the bottles fell, but several toppled back on the table, clattering as they went.

The man glanced at her with a smug smile plastered on his face, "You lose."

Ellie, who was laughing too hard to be mad at him, shook her head, "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. You win."

"Too bad we ain't got any giraffes." Joel mused.

Their laughter died down then, but the mood – the feeling of peace and happiness – remained. Ellie clutched her sides in some sort of self-hug, and Joel watched the wooden cylinders with a rather intense stare. Eventually, Ellie looked up at him.

"I think carnivals would have been nice," She said. Her eyes were still wide and green with excitement, and Joel couldn't deny that it made him happy to see her happy. Happy was something he'd been trying to give her since he'd seen the sadness in her eyes as she talked about Riley, "I bet I'd have won a giraffe."

"Maybe," Joel agreed, crossing his arms, "But I think I'd have done better."

The sun was setting in the distance. Red and yellow squares of light danced off the shapes of the carnival buildings. Joel squinted back down to Ellie.

"We should head on out. Gettin' late."

They both turned to leave the lot, abandoning the carnival, when Ellie spoke.

"Joel? Thanks."

* * *

**[an]** Updating is such a hassle, but then I think about it and realize that I love writing and updating and that this is such an accomplishment considering the complete lack of work I've done all summer.

Regardless, this update is special in the sense that it was written as a gift to a tumblr friend, who suggested that hey, Ellie and Joel needed to come across an abandoned carnival. And I think that idea worked out pretty well. I can't really tell whether or not I liked this, so I'm just going to pretend that I did.

Read and review!

Cheers!

Katelyn **[an]**


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